The North Dakota deer rifle season started last Friday, November 7th, but a fall blizzard dumped 9-15 inches of snow across most of the western part of the state, paralyzing much of the deer hunting.

I personally didn’t leave my home in Mandan until late Friday for Dickinson, and didn’t get any hunting in that day.

What I saw on Saturday was nothing short of amazing.  With the cutting of much of the CRP, and many of the draws and tree rows snowed over, herds of whitetail deer were sprinkled across the landscape, sometimes gathering 30-50 at a time.  Of course they were miles away from the main roads, and the section lines were blow in and impassible (see image above).

Even the pheasants were forced out of the cover in an attempt to get warm and find food.  After seeing literally thousands of pheasants in the fields I had to take a photo out the window. You’ll have to click on it to enlarge, but this is a small sampling of the number of birds forced from habitat due to the weather.

Now, back to the deer hunting.

We knew that to get to the deer we would have to take some chances and walk in to the back side of some hills.  But since the roads were in such tough shape, that meant walking in, and back out, all through wind-blown hard-packed snow that was waist deep at times.

But then we saw the muley.  He was standing on posted land, proud as hell, at the end of a tree row.  He was watching some does, and seemed oblivious to the traffic on the road to his west.

After debating for nearly an hour, I finally decided to call the landowner and get permission.  He generously granted us access, and less than 1/2 hour later, he was down.

At 39 years old I finally got my first mule deer, and the biggest deer I’ve ever shot.  He’s not a monster by any means, but a respectable buck for my area and North Dakota in general.

Take a look.